INFO
The Science of Sleep
2 stars. Directed by Michel Gondry. Stars Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg. Rated R. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.
In most movies, dream scenes offer the filmmakers the chance to show off. When the heroes' heads hit the pillows, otherwise-realistic stories take detours for exaggerated humor, fear and flights of surreal fancy. The comedic mind game The Science of Sleep has more than its share of wild visions, but writer-director Michel Gondry also appreciates that dreams can be as banal and messy as waking life.
Sleep takes us inside the head of Stephane (Mexican heartthrob Gael García Bernal), a hapless young would-be inventor who finds himself at sea in Paris, toiling at a lousy job and mooning over the sweet gamine Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who lives across the hall. Stephane's problem is not in his extravagant dream life, but that both he and the audience become increasingly unable to distinguish his subconscious fantasies from his day-to-day reality.
When Gondry directed Charlie Kaufman's script of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he crafted a loose, naturalistic style that made the film's weirdness all the more dislocating. Gondry takes a similar approach with Sleep, setting a realistic tone until slipping without warning into dreamland. When Stephane puts a motor in Stephanie's beloved felt pony, it gallops across her carpet in a whimsical, lovely image that probably isn't real. Stephane also plays host on a cardboard TV show placed literally inside his head, witnesses the destruction and creation of cardboard cities and tries to work with hands the size of parade floats.
The Science of Sleep invites plenty of psychoanalytical questions, such as whether his annoying co-workers represent the id, ego and superego. The trouble is, Stephane's true feelings about Stephanie become impossible to sort out. He maintains pointless deceptions, treats her nicely then rudely within minutes, and wavers between attraction to Stephanie and to her friend. Perhaps his muddled mind-set is supposed to approximate how our expectations and high emotions in romance seldom square with our lovers' real personalities.
Despite clever pieces of stop-motion animation, The Science of Sleep ultimately feels more like as a narrow psychological case study than a metaphor for universal truths. Despite Gondry's impressive stylistic doodling, we look at Stephane's predicament and think, "Sure would suck to be him."
